TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR EDUCATORS

 (NOTE: amongst the several documents which contain Don Bosco's own descriptions of the Preventive System, there exists one which few have access to, and certainly not in English to my knowledge. It appears in the earliest editions of Don Bosco's REGOLAMENTO PER LE CASE DELLA SOCIETA DI SAN FRANCESCO DI SALES. There it appears as 'Articoli generali' - either an appendix to global comments about the preventive system, or an introduction to the rules for the Houses. Don Bosco drew up these 'ten commandments' in the first half of 1877. They were published in Autumn of that year. What follows is a rough translation of that earliest text).

 GENERAL ARTICLES

1. Those who find themselves, by virtue of Divine Providence, with some office, or as assistants to the young, have the task of giving advice and counsel to any boy whenever there is reason, especially when it is a case of avoiding some offense to God.

 2. Let each one see that he makes himself loved if he wants to be feared. He will achieve this fine purpose if with words, but more so with deeds, he makes it known that his care is directed exclusively to the spiritual and temporal welfare of his pupils. 

3. Assistance consists of few words and many deeds, and in giving the pupils opportunity to freely express their thoughts; but take care to rectify and correct expressions, words and deeds which do not conform to Christian education.

 4. The young are accustomed to manifest one of these following character types: good, ordinary, difficult, bad. It is our strict duty to study the ways of holding these different characters together for the good of all and without any one doing harm to the others. 

5. For those who have a naturally good character, general surveillance is enough - the simple explanation of rules and the recommendation that these be observed. 

6. The majority category is of those who have an ordinary character - somewhat fickle and indifferent. They need short but frequent advice and recommendations. They need encouragement in their work, even small rewards, and the showing of trust without overlooking the need for surveillance.

 7. But the greatest care and effort should be expended on the third category - that of those who are difficult and often idle. These occur about one in fifteen. Every superior should get to know who they are, inform himself about them, show himself their friend, let them speak often. He in turn should say little, but keep his responses to short examples, maxims and the like. He should not let them out of his sight without at the same time making it clear that he distrusts them.

 8. Teachers and assistants, when they arrive amongst their pupils, should immediately cast their eye over the group and, when they find one of these types missing, should send for him under pretext of having something to say to him. 

9. Whenever blame needs to be apportioned to someone, see that it is not done in front of companions. Nevertheless, one can make use of examples, episodes that have happened to others in giving praise or blame to such boys.

 10. These articles are preliminary to the Regulations. But for everyone patience, diligence and much prayer are indispensable. Without these, I believe every rule is worthless.

COMMENTS

The general thrust of these ten points is preventive. Keep in mind that they are intended for boys in the Oratory or a boarding school set-up.

 But to only look at the text from this viewpoint would be to be reductionist. The kinds of principles espoused here are at the basis of the Preventive System exercised in any time or place: the quality of the educators, the primacy of love over fear, the different types of character and the consequent need for different kinds of interventions.

 a) educators

Note - anyone who has some responsibility before young people should exercise 'assistence-presence'. The presence is active, vigilant and constructive. Already here we can see the degree of self-giving, 'consecration' needed from a teacher-assistant. DB puts it in terms which are a kind of minor spirituality: patience, diligence and much prayer. But one can see that these demand considerable depth and substance to be real. Elsewhere DB puts it that the system is easy on the pupils and hard on the teachers!

 b) Love and fear in the educative process

In the Ten Commandments above, we can see DB dealing with this relationship between love and fear. What we perhaps need to realize is that DB had given much thought to this before he wrote it here. In his LA STORIA D'ITALIA (1855) he examines the relationship between these two factors throughout Italian history right back to the time of the Etruscans - Numa Pompilio, Julius Caesar, Vespasian...Duke of Savoy, etc.

 Gradually, DB hammered out the phrase that has become so characteristic of his Preventive System: "studia di farsi amare".

 c) assistance

DB calls assistance the focal point of his system. Cf its importance in the Letter from Rome and his treatise on the PS. In this text, however, it is put as "few words, many deeds". Salesians were wont to say that the assistant shall be a man of few words and prompt action! In terms of attitudes, here assistance seems to be a matter of being sober, reserved, practical but in a way that does not detract from cordiality and friendliness. In the articles that follow, assistance takes different forms according to the characters it must deal with.

 d) different characters

Classifying boys according to moral criteria becomes almost a literary genre with Don Bosco, from his first book 1844 (Cenni storici sulla vita del chierico Luigi Comollo). Usually he adopts three types: good, bad, then those not all good but not all bad.